Project description:Nuclear pore complex (NPC) structure and maturity changed during early development before MBT in zebrafish embryos. Aiming to further confirm the difference of NPCs among different stages during MZT, we first isolated nuclei from 32-cell and 512-cell stage embryos as most zygotic genes have not been transcribed at these two stages yet. The lysates from identical number (about 12,500 nuclei per stage) isolated nuclei were then trypsin-digested and fractionated, followed by high-resolution LC-MS/MS analysis on the Q-Exactive HF-X mass spectrometers using a label-free assay. Whole blastomeres from 32-cell and 512-cell were also prepared with yolk removal to serve as total protein profile control, and the same amount lysates were analyzed by high-resolution LC-MS/MS with TMT labelled. Each sample for MS analysis had two repeats. Correlation analysis revealed that the abundance ratio from isolated Nuclei and whole deyolking balstomeres did not correlate well, but samples in Nuclei or Whole blastomeres were well correlated. This result indicates the convincible sample preparation as well as the variability in nuclei composition in early developmental period before MBT.
Project description:We examined gene expression profiles of individual blastomeres of early Ciona embryos using microarrays. We examined gene expression profiles of individual blastomeres of the 8-cell, 16-cell and 32-cell embryos by dissecting with a fine glass needle. We also examined gene expression profiles of unfertilized eggs and embryos from the 1- to 32-cell stages.
Project description:Key regulatory decisions during cleavage divisions in mammalian embryogenesis determine the fate of preimplantation embryonic cells. Single-cell RNA-sequencing of early stage—2-cell, 4-cell, and 8-cell—blastomeres show that the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), traditionally considered as an environmental sensor, directs the segregation of 4-cell blastomeres. Disruption of endogenous AHR functions in Ahr knockout embryos or in embryos from dams exposed to dioxin, the prototypic xenobiotic AHR agonist, significantly impairs blastocyst formation by causing repression of OCT4 expression, decline of CDX2 expression, loss of OCT4 and CDX2 transcriptional heterogeneity, and incidence of nonspecific pluripotency downregulation. Trajectory and gene variability analyses further confirm that deregulation of OCT4 functions and changes of transcriptional heterogeneity resulting from disruption of AHR functions restrict the emergence of differentiating blastomeres within these embryos. It appears that AHR governs the differentiation of progenitor blastomeres and that interference with AHR functions significantly perturbs embryogenesis.
Project description:In multicellular organisms, heterogametes of oocytes and sperms are fertilized and resulting zygotes give rise to new individuals. The ability of zygotes that produce a fully formed individual from single cell when placed in a supportive environment is defined as totipotency. Given that totipotent cells are the source of all multicellular organisms, better understanding of totipotency has a profound effect on not only biology but also our society. However, the exact distribution of totipotent cells in mammals remains elusive, although zygotes and single blastomeres at 2-cell stage embryos has been thought to be only mouse cells to be totipotent. We now show that a single blastomere isolated from 2- and 4-cell stage embryos gives rise to a fertile adult individual when it placed in a uterus, although isolation of blastomeres at these stage results in the disturbance of transcriptome in single blastomere derived embryos. Single blastomeres from 8-cell and morula stage embryos that were separately cultured in vitro exhibited severe defects in the formation of epiblast and primitive endoderm in the inner cell mass and the development to blastocysts, respectively. Our results thus indicate that totipotency of mouse zygotes extends to single blastomeres of 4-cell stage embryos.
Project description:In total, 240 single blastomeres from nine top-quality day-4 embryos frozen at day 3 of development and four fresh top-quality day-4 embryos that had one-cell biopsy on day 3 for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) were collected. Blastomeres' DNA was amplified using SurePlex DNA Amplification System (BlueGnome, Cambridge, UK) . Array-CGH was carried out using 24Sure Cytochip microarrays following the standard protocol (BlueGnome, www.cytochip.com).
Project description:We have examined whether twin blastomeres from 2-cell stage mouse embryos differ in mRNA content. Amplified mRNA from 12 blastomeres derived from six embryos approximately mid-way through their second cell cycle was analyzed. Probes displaying normalized values greater than 0.25 were selected and examined for consistent bias in expression within blastomere pairs. Although transcript content varied both between individual embryos and twin blastomeres, no consistent asymmetries were observed for the majority of genes. On the other hand, 769 genes displayed a greater than 1.4-fold difference in expression across 5 of 6 pairs of blastomeres and 178 genes differed across all 6 pairs. These genes separated into two groups by class discovery clustering. Of the 769 differentially expressed genes, 163 were significantly up- or down-regulated in one sister blastomere compared to the other. Transcripts encoding proteins implicated in RNA processing and cytoskeletal organization were highly represented among the most abundant, differentially distributed mRNA. We conclude that there are many differences that distinguish twin blastomeres derived from a single 2-cell stage embryo but that only a few of these differences are consistent across multiple pairs of embryos. We hypothesize that a stochastically-based lack of synchrony in cell cycle progression between the two cells might explain some or all of the asymmetries in transcript composition.
Project description:Seventy blastomeres from fourteen frozen-thawed supernumerary human preimplantation embryos were disassociated and genomic was amplified using Multiple Displacement Amplification. BAC array-CGH was performed on the amplified products.
Project description:The ability of sister blastomeres of 8-cell mouse embryos to produce ESC lines was measured, and the transcriptome of the Bm-mESCs lines generated was analyzed by RNA-seq.